Somewhere Far Away
by Skythian
Summary: AU where undercover detective, Kara Danvers infiltrates Lena Luthor's cooperation in an attempt to reveal secrets and inevitably get closer to the mastermind under the criminal investigation (and everything that ensues) (Not so much a Lena Luthor evil AU, I just enjoy writing the romantic tension between them in these types of scenarios)


It was 4:06 am. Her footsteps had been silent; her methods unnoticeable. There was no way anybody knew she was out here. And yet in the pitch black space, shadows darkened and shifted. A silhouette pierced through the corner of the barricaded road.

The woman watched attentively as someone clumsily walked towards her. She nonchalantly took another puff of her guilty pleasure and blew out a mouthful: fumes circled in the air, the dim light reflected against the smoke; in the corner tainted by darkness, hardly visible, they danced in the night and acted as a blurring filter to her view. But she knew who the individual was, nevertheless: a stranger and a friend; a lover and an enemy; previously, an if, once upon a time, an always, and now, a never.

"I didn't take you for a smoker," a familiar voice resounded amidst the approaching figure.

"You're late."

"Well…." The mysterious person pointed and circled around herself to reveal at least a dozen warehouses systematically divided, piles of trash and debris lying around, an old pier at the back and the stillness of a river, its body glinting faintly by a sole light post flickering interchangeable in their midst. "I wasn't sure that you would want to meet here of all places at these exact coordinates. I had to jump through hoops and loops ever since they closed off the streets around this site."

"Dark, suspicious places don't suit your flashy style, Detective Danvers?"

"Not any more than the encrypted messages you had left me as a means of locating you in the first place, Ms. Luthor." The detective stood beside the stacked craters on the side opposite the water which blocked off any view from the main road.

"Speaking of which," Lena reached out to the back lining and flung out a folder hidden beneath her overshadowed maroon peacoat while delicately balancing the cigarette in her other hand, "more encryption."

Kara reached out to take the file but Lena withdrew before the thing made contact with her hand.

"Just a tip. Make sure no one else gets their hands on these documents." Lena's face was soaked in shade, except for the slit where light shone across her austere expression, revealing a piercing stare.

"Not even those you trust most," Lena commented slyly as she slid the folder back to the intended recipient. "We both know how even the most trusted can betray you when you least expect."

Lena began walking away.

Kara's own facial expression was unrecognizable in the night, especially with her slouched shoulders and her head tilted downwards, eyes glued to her derby shoes.

"October 22nd, 2016."

Lena felt a sense of comfort and familiarity at those words though now she felt rather awful at their meaning, as if someone had pushed her into a bathtub filled with freezing water or she guessed, the feeling one gets when they dive back 3 whole years.

"The day I cannot take back. The day I cannot return to you," Kara gnawed at the words, wistfully bewailing their loss.

Lena made no answer. Instead, her gaze turned towards a place where stars had been swallowed by sullen clouds and blurring city lights and where the river ran cold black. The latter, with her wide-reaching width, separated the grand bustling city from the vacant and isolated warehouse distribution area, with the brewing, blistering, chilling autumn air functioning as an unpleasant reminder of that fact. The wailing sounds of sirens etching from a distance with the thrumming metal wheels battering against the railway tracks melted seamlessly with the calming, silent, sleeping river; the water frothing and bending and churning only in its wake. The inky-substance coursed through erratically, spilling over against the concrete walls and overgrown grass. This infinitely flowing fabric cast a hypnotizing spell as she pulled one into a depth unknown. Lena felt herself drowning in its dismal darkness, her consciousness unravelling inside a universe unexplored.

Lena recalled that she had replayed this scenario in her mind a thousand times. In the mornings: juggling between her family disputes and personal endeavors; in the evenings: from showers to late dinners in her empty office; at night: before eyelids grew heavy with thought and she had melted into slumber unwittingly.

But those thoughts frightened her as they became bigger than her: intrusive and insufferable. She would try to contain them in her garden where roots had grown so devilishly and so exorbitantly, that she had to pluck them out until the sap oozed down and spilled across her fingertips and the roots withered in her hands. Lena's mind grew restless like the wild crops in her garden until the wilted and shrivelled stems would entangle themselves around her, so tightly, that a wave of a dreadful tiredness would set in its place when she would wrestle against them.

"Remember that time when we travelled to your cottage by the ocean. The place we'd have breakfast in sandals filled with sand from morning strolls and where we'd feel the ocean breeze caressing our skin, lullabying us to sleep on hot summer nights; where the sky was bright all day and the stars were bright all night. In between that time, when the sky was filled with pink and purple hues, you'd stand by the ocean and look far outward for a long time. On those nights, you'd hold me a little tighter and you'd kiss a little harder. I wondered why?" Kara's voice acted as a pebble rippling against Lena's conscious. She watched as Kara's gaze turned to where she was looking beforehand. She guessed that maybe she too, was mesmerized by the silent, the dark, the cold; thinking of a time one could never get back. "But you knew, knew who I was, knew deep down that I would — "

"betray me," Lena finished for her as she flicked the cigarette bud and watched its existence unfold and extinguish in flames as the ashes fell beside her. She knew she was not expecting some kind of arcane Phoenix resurrection, but sometimes she had hoped that that kind of magic existed. Not now: not the Lena Luthor everyone knew and admired and also feared and hunted. Not the logical Lena: the chess master and science prodigy. But, a Lena from long ago: a Lena she had lost along the way.

The pair stood silently with their feet pressed firmly against the wet, sopping gravel, with scattered autumn leaves smothered on asphalt around the outskirts of the area they found themselves in, where few thin, ailing trees grew and died. She watched the branches travel and spread and split in many different pathways.

In another world, or sometimes in Lena's dreams, Kara would come out of the shower from washing off skin previously soaked in salt and sand and she would ask while chuckling and towelling her hair dry: "Where'd you find that old thing?"

An old record with an upbeat tempo would play on a vintage vinyl in Lena's main room as

she herself would dance to the rhythm with a poised stride. Her silk robe would flutter in the air like the spreading wings of a bird as she elongated her arms in a smooth and elegant motion and pivoted in a revolving whirl, her vivacious grin almost lost behind the rising puffs. She would practically levitate, bare feet gliding across the wooden floor, as her legs extended in a buoyant yet fervent movement.

"In the closet behind you," she would huff as her disheveled raven strands of hair were left to loosely dangle across her face, matching Kara's own tangled mess.

"Thought modern stereo speakers were more your style." Kara would approach in her white guest robes and would carefully take Lena's offered hand.

"Well then," Lena would say while positioning Kara's arm around her waist as her emerald-green orbs stared at boundless pools of blue, her gaze sliding across Kara's facial features and landing on her lips, "maybe you don't know everything about me."

The two would merrily bounce across the room as one until their pace would come down to a simmer and would slow down enough for Lena to gently lean in closer into her partner's arms, absorbing in their warmth.

"It belonged to my father."

Kara would give her a curious tilt of the head.

"You couldn't imagine the amount of tracks he preserved. He was an avid collector, really," Lena spoke slowly and quietly as if she was preserving the memory in the small space between them.

"I find this way, I can wander into a different time, a different place, walk in the footsteps of a different person."

Lena would settle her head on Kara's shoulder and sigh deeply and say, "I don't want the music to end."

"It's okay, we can put on another song," Kara would tenderly reply.

Lena would faintly smile. Clearly entranced by frantic thoughts, she would suggest facetiously while her sharp gaze held Kara's own: "Then should we just stay here, leave the project proposal for the rest of the team back in the city to handle?"

"Should we? Your mother will be furious with me."

"She's always furious," Lena would remark, and she would push them onto the couch to their rear. She would start to playfully imprint small kisses on Kara's forehead, cheek and neck, and Kara would giggle at the soft brushing touch of those tender, nimble lips. However, Kara's smile would quickly wither into a frown and she would inevitably state, "you know we can't."

The record would scratch; the needle would lift above the spiral groove and a forlorn silence would settle in the room.

"I know," Lena would reply defeatedly, and she would wake up.

And now, 36 months, 3 weeks, 1 day, 13 hours, 46 minutes and 40 seconds later, the world was upside down and she found herself barely hanging on. "I'm leaving," Lena declared, "leaving this city, going somewhere far away. I won't be coming back."

"I am aware that the officer of the law won't simply let me pass through the border while I am under a 24 hour surveillance. That's why I came to trade my projects for my freedom," Lena continued while pointing at the files she had just recently handed over to the detective. "Last time, it didn't go well for either of us. Your undercover mission left a huge dent on the corporation, and the enterprise continues to be a ticking bomb for the FBI and NYPD."

"You know this can't end well for either of us in our current situation," Lena reiterated.

"I know," Kara replied defeatedly and closed her eyes.

The sun rose slowly over the horizon, illuminating and exposing shadows and secrets lurking in the darkest corners with a wondrous glow. Lena looked at Kara as the light filled the dark crevasses on her face with an orange and yellow tint, revealing sad blue eyes. And suddenly, she was swept by a dream of the ocean that reached somewhere far away and music that never ended. She saw the Kara from the time they first confessed their love for each other. She saw the two of them when they first held hands nervously by the pier. She saw their first awkward meeting in her office. She saw herself staring at a gawky yet adorable-looking photo in the huge application stack.

"I wanted it to be with you," Lena said, her eyes misting over with tears.

"Me too," Kara spoke contemplatively, glossing her thumb over her leather-strapped watch, reminiscing over a time lost.

Before they could withdraw their minds from far away places, their lips had smashed against each other with urgency and vigor, like the crashing of two waves. Their mouths clashed in a convoluted mess, the sour, searing sensation twisting and turning into diabolical madness. They kissed under the pink and purple hued sky. Lena tasted a tinge of saltiness in the wet and soft and sloppy movement of their tongues, and she felt the slippery, drooping mess smudge against their pressing skin.

"Maybe in another lifetime," Lena said and gave a rueful smile, her fingertips hovering over Kara's cheek before she fully pulled away.

Kara felt Lena's presence dissipate as her figure vanished into the distance. She listened to the birds chirp and watched the sun rays bounce joyfully around the landscape, warming her cheeks and fingertips and toes. The earth breathed out the smell of rain, and Kara indulged in the aroma of soil, of grass, of trees. The city grew richer as the sky shone over it, bathing it in golden streaks. She heard chattering workers pulling over at the warehouse distribution area and approaching the vicinity for another day of grinding work.

"It's going to be another long day," Kara had thought and began walking away in the opposite direction.


End file.
